Oil and gas wells require maintenance on a routine basis in order to keep the wells operating at maximum capacity. Maintenance of an oil or gas well is performed on an as needed basis depending on the geographical location, physical properties, previous maintenance history, and type of well. The type of maintenance required for a particular well depends on the down hole conditions in the oil or gas well. For example, certain characteristics allow water to flow into the oil or gas well bore. Removal of excess water from the well bore allows the oil or gas to flow into the well bore. Water may build up in the well bore due to natural water levels in the geographical area around the well or from water that is pumped into the well during the well drilling and fracturing process. Water is removed through a process called “swabbing.” Swabbing a well ensures maximum performance and maximum output of oil or gas from the well.
Generally, swabbing operations are conducted using truck mounted swabbing or service rigs. Service rigs may also be known as double-drum rigs or workover rigs, but such devices will be referred to generally throughout the application as service rigs. The service rigs may have a hydrostatically driven winch, which an operator may use to lower various tools into oil wells. Swabbing is performed by lowering swab mandrels into the well bore to the level of water in the well bore, and then subsequently into and below the water surface level. It is universally accepted to try to remove about six barrels of fluid during every swabbing operation. Each cycle of lowering the cable and tools into the well, collecting fluid from the well, and raising the cable and tools from the well by winding the cable with a winch is known as a run. The frequency with which a well is swabbed is dependent upon individual well characteristics, including the age of a well. For example, some wells may need to be swabbed weekly at which time a single barrel of fluid is removed. In another example, a well may need to be swabbed every six months, at which time ten barrels of fluid are removed.
During well maintenance and swabbing operations, information regarding depth of well, water level within the well, amount of water extracted, date and time of well service, as well as service rig operating data are observed. This information may be recorded for proof of service and to maintain a written record that enables a well owner to record the historical conditions of the well. Currently, data generated by the service rig is presently observed through various manual readouts during operation. However, the on-site rig operator may not accurately record the information or record the information at all. Generally, a well service operator performs manual calculations to arrive at a total volume of water removed from the well during well maintenance. Even though the manual calculations are performed, the accuracy of the information is not always guaranteed.
It is customary for a well owner to hire an outside contract agency to perform swabbing operations. A well owner may contract with a service rig provider to pull tubing from a well and contract with one or more service providers to provide other specific services in connection with the service rig company in order to rehabilitate the well according to the owner's direction. The well owner will then receive individual invoices for services rendered from each company involved in service or well maintenance. For example, a service rig operator may spend twenty hours at the well site and the well owner will be billed for the twenty hours or more of service. The well owner may not receive any detail as to the service operations in terms of when the work was started, completed, the speed of the operation, the amount of fluid removed from the well, or any problems that were encountered during service operations. In some instances, the well owner may be provided with a manual log of operations taken by hand from the rig operation, but the hand written notes may not be reliable, or recorded at all. The well owner has no indication of whether the service operations were done properly, or whether the well has been completely serviced. Also, a well owner that owns more than one well in a particular geographic location may not be able to properly identify which well was serviced. A well may be located in remote locations and the owner may not be able to physically visit the well sites. In this case, the well owner has no record of service operations, any problems with the well, or any accidents that occurs on-site during service operation.
As presently known, service and swabbing rigs do not have controls to shutdown operations when the service operations go out of a safe range. For example, the prior art service and swabbing rigs are unable to prevent “crown out” or overload by shutting down the swabbing operations when the system pressure or temperature go out of the normal range. In addition, the prior art rigs do not have multiple response scenarios to control rig operations based on all information gathered from the rig and service operations.
The present invention solves the problem of monitoring all information from the chassis and rig service operations in order to generate a multi-stage safety response and maintenance schedule based on the multiple inputs from the system. The present system and method can respond with multiple actions to assist the rig operator in safety and efficiency of service operations.